ly reasonable to the extent of being nauseous,
was harder to endure. It was not so much that Foskett had set out to
like Euripides because Euripides was fashionable once again, though
that of course was possible: but it was his determination to be fair at
all costs that was fatal. Foskett was so pertinaciously fair, so eager
to do justice to both sides of the literary problem that Martin
considered that he didn't in the end properly understand or sympathise
with either side. It occurred to him that compromise is always
necessary in human affairs and usually fatal. And so while Foskett
declaimed the Electra and gave out the points to be noticed for and
against such treatment of the tragic theme, Martin shuddered and
sometimes sulked. Intellectual isolation is not good for the manners,
and Foskett found Martin difficult: the two remained always at a
distance, never openly hostile, and never sympathetic.

Few Public School boys are critical of the institutions amid which they
are brought up, but it was natural for Martin to ponder, as he idled
through his last two terms, on the value of the things he had learnt
and of the habits in which he had been trained. He had been interested
in H. G. Wells' pungent comments on the way we manage education, and he
was fascinated by the sweeping schemes of reconstruction. Was all this
classical business, he asked himself, just a waste of time and effort?
Was he just groping at the door of a treasure-house whose contents had
long ago been rifled? He resolved to consult Finney.

Though Finney was now always charitably treated by the Upper Sixth, his
warfare with the Upper Fourth was telling on him. Even in a few months
he had lost vivacity and ambition, for he was beginning to suffer from
the spiritual blight that attacks every unsuccessful schoolmaster in
his time. In a year or two he would be shrivelled up into an irritable
bunch of nerves, his ability wasted, his hopes stifled. Martin could
foresee no escape for Finney, unless by some lucky chance he could get
back to Oxford: but that was impossible, for those who leave Oxford
rarely return.

Finney was willing enough to talk, but Martin was disappointed with the
conversation. He was a Liberal both in politics and disposition, and
as a result he had no point of view: he was angry about things and
could suggest little reform, but there was no comprehensive unity or
vitality in his ideas. He was the kind of man who makes g